Woman finds out on TV she is renting suspected serial killer's home

A St. Louis woman discovered more than she ever wanted to know about the home she was renting -- while she was watching TV.

WRTV

McGhaw only learned about the home's dark past after a friend alerted her to a documentary about serial killers.

KMOV/News 4 Investigates

ABC News

ST. LOUIS - A St. Louis woman discovered more than she ever wanted to know about the home she was renting -- while she was watching TV.

Catrina McGhaw signed a rental lease in March and said she had no idea about the home’s dark past. A family member told her to check out a cold case documentary on the A&E network about serial killers.

It was then she realized she was living in the same house that alleged serial killer Maury Travis used as a torture chamber more than a decade ago. The landlord even gave her the same dining room table that was documented in the crime scene photos.

"When she showed us the house she said, 'You can have this table if you want,' those are the same chairs, same everything," McGhaw said. "This whole basement was his torture chamber and it’s not OK."

Travis hanged himself while he was being held in jail in 2002, but police believe he killed between 12 to 20 women -- many of whom died in the basement of the home, ABC News reported.

When McGhaw called her landlord and begged to get out of her lease, the landlord -- who happened to be the suspected killer’s mother -- was not sympathetic.

Sandra Travis said only material defects needed to be noted to renters and she said she mentioned the home’s backstory before McGhaw signed the lease.

McGhaw insisted Travis did not disclose any information about the case or the bodies that her son allegedly kept in the basement.

Cheryl Lovell, the executive director of the St Louis Housing Authority, confirmed to ABC News that they helped negotiate the end of the lease.

"Initially, the landlord was not willing to let her break her lease but we talked with her and eventually the landlord agreed to rescind the lease," Lovell told ABC News. "In this state, there is no duty to disclose. Other states there are, but mostly that is for selling houses."

McGhaw said she will be moving out of the home at the end of the month -- which she said cannot come soon enough.